This year was a quality Hall of Fame class. David Stern was a must, even for those of us who see his legacy as mixed. Alonzo Mourning and Mitch Richmond deserved the call, as did Nat Clifton and Sarunas Marciulionis.

Now, what about next year’s class?

First, the voters should put in some of the guys who didn’t make the cut this year but deserve to be in — Tim Hardaway should be in, and Chris Webber deserves to be in the conversation (he wasn’t even nominated last year). Other guys to consider are Penny Hardaway and Spencer Haywood. (Sorry, I’m not in the group that thinks Robert Horry should be in.)

One name deserving of consideration is Dikembe Mutombo — eight time All-Star, four time Defensive Player of the Year and one of the great players to come to the NBA from Africa (not to mention he had a strong career at Georgetown and this is a basketball, not NBA, hall of fame).

After that the pickings in the rookie class get slim: Bruce Bowen, Brent Barry, Bobby Jackson, Matt Harpring, Tyronn Lue and Mark Madsen are the names you know, and none of them are really Hall of Fame guys. Some good players, but not HOF.

Next year will be an interesting case, it might be time for a smaller class than normal heading into the Hall of Fame.

You also don’t get DPOY for what you do in the playoffs, so you argument kind of collapses on itself. First you want to act like he won the DPOY award for what he did in Philly, he didn’t. If anything, it took him a few weeks to adjust, and he was nowhere near his normal self defensively until just before the playoffs

AI didn’t take them to the finals by them self. Hill was a double double guy that year, it was the best season of McKie’s career, Lynch was a lock down defender, etc. But that team, even with Mutombo, would of been lucky to make the playoffs minus AI. He didn’t do it by himself, but he certainly carried them on his back